'Yes――I want to speak to Captain Rattenbury. Where is he?' 'He is not here. I am his son.' 'Jack!――You! Your father has been betrayed. I overheard the officer from Lyme arranging to take you all. He has sent for the soldiers. He knows that you are to meet the carts at Heathfield Cross.' 'When did you hear this?' 'To-day――some hours ago――on the beach, below the station. I was behind a rock, and they did not see me.' 'Why did you not speak of this before?' 'Your father was not at home, or I would have done so. I waited, expecting every hour to see him come in. Now I have run away whilst mother is asleep.' 'You are a brave, good girl,' said the young man. He turned to the men. 'What is to be done?' he asked. 'We must go back,' said one or two. 'You must not go back,' exclaimed Winefred. 'Indeed you must not; the soldiers are on the road from Musbury.' 'Then forward.' 'That will not do. The coastguard in force are watching at Heathfield Cross.' The men were silent. After some consideration, in a dead silence, Jack said, 'There is but one course open. We must creep along the lanes to Hay and Buckland, and stow our goods wherever we can.' 'Do you think that possible? I suspect that they are drawing in from east and west, and have taken the precaution to stop all the earths to the north.' Winefred knew by the voice that the man who spoke was David Nutall, to whom she had taken the captain's letter. 'I know they will have done that,' she said. 'I heard them say as much. They intended drawing a net round you, and leaving you no way of escape save over the cliffs into the sea.' Again an anxious silence ensued. Then one asked: 'Jack! how about the undercliff? Has not your father got runs and rat-holes there that would contain us all?' 'No,' answered the young man. 'He is too wary for that. He knows that the very first place that would be searched would be his cottage.' 'There is something in that. Then there is no help for it; we must drop our goods――there in yonder plantation I advise――and get away singly as best we may.' 'We shall be caught and detained till the whole of this bit of country has been put through the sieve, and if they find the tubs――we are done for.' 'It is a bad job.' 'I vote we fight rather than lose our goods.' 'There are too many. We should be overpowered.' 'I do not relish losing everything without making an effort to break through.' 'I can tell you what to do,' said the girl, 'and also where you may conceal everything.' 'Where is that?'